Baptism & Confirmation

Knowing God as his adopted child begins at Holy Baptism by spiritual regeneration. In the case of adults, there is a preliminary and preparatory knowing as their initial conversion draws them to Christ before they prepare for full incorporation into Christ, and membership in his Body, the Church.

In the third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, adults went through a long period of preparation in the catechetical schools before the final preparation in Lent leading to baptism on Easter Eve. In modern times we have generally made the preparation less exacting, but some wish to restore a longer, deeper preparation for entry into the full fellowship of the church. Such preparation is important today as our secular culture has corrupted our hearts and minds. The corruption is so thorough that we need a reconstructed view of God and of the world in order to develop Christian thinking, feeling, and acting, and to have a genuine Christian mindset.

With infants there is no obvious preliminary knowing of God, and thus their knowing of God’s grace begins at Baptism and comes to fruition with Confirmation. In this instance God’s grace coming to fruition in their lives is in part dependent upon faithful nurturing and teaching of the baptized children by parents and godparents (sponsors). Observation suggests that the actual coming to know God in a personal way occurs more readily and easily when the baptized infant is surrounded by faithful prayer, godly example, and sound teaching.

Originally what we call Baptism and Confirmation belonged together and were one, occurring in the one service and often at Easter Eve in the early centuries of the Church. However, from the fifth century onwards, many more infants than adults were brought for Baptism. Thus the separation of Confirmation from Baptism developed in the West. It did not develop in the East, where priests administered chrism as part of the Baptism of infants. The relation between Baptism and Confirmation has not been as clearly stated as it could have been. The 1979 Prayer Book claims “initiation is complete in Baptism,” and that Confirmation is not a Sacrament. This is a modern ecumenical approach and is not in keeping with the historic Anglican Way.

There are five parts to the Sacrament of Holy Baptism:

1. The preparation consists of an exhortation, prayers and reading of the Gospel acknowledging the truth that it is God who calls and brings people into covenant with himself, the church and his Kingdom.
2. The promises made by the recipient, or the sponsors, is a response to the grace of God offered to each person in Jesus Christ.
3. Blessing the water consecrates and sets it aside to be the outward and visible expression of an inward and spiritual cleansing.
4. The act of Baptism requires a fully Trinitarian formula.
5. The thanksgiving is for the union of the baptized with the Lord Jesus Christ.

With infants the initial responsibility to make the presence of Christ effective in their lives depends of course upon the godliness of parents and sponsors. There is a solemn duty laid upon the local church to pray for those who have been baptized as infants and await their Confirmation. This is to encourage parents and sponsors in the privilege and duty of bringing children up in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

Confirmation is intimately related to Baptism and is rightly thought of as the conclusion of the sacrament of Holy Baptism. It may be called a sacrament in the sense that it is the final part of the rite of Baptism, which has been held back until such time as the child truly understands, appreciates and accepts the covenantal obligation to God. Thus as long as the Church advocates and practices infant baptism, she must take Confirmation seriously.

From a practical point of view, Confirmation is most useful as the opportunity to provide sound, preparatory instruction to those who are now seriously taking on the duties of the baptismal commitments. In this regard, it functions in much the same way as did preparation for Baptism in the Early Church and as catechetical teaching functions in missionary situations today. This preparation is both a work of God and a work of man. God does his work invisibly through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but the local church does her work through wise teaching, judicious pastoral care, and fervent praying for those to be confirmed. The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit include:

1. Spirit of Wisdom
2. Spirit of Understanding
3. Spirit of Counsel
4. Spirit of Ghostly Strength
5. Spirit of Knowledge
6. Spirit of True Godliness
7. Spirit of Holy Fear.

These are not gifts of moral virtue. They are gifts which allow and incline a person to acquire moral virtues and practice them. These gifts do not come ready made. Each person must carefully form right habits of action and feeling.

The Standing Liturgical Commission of TEC, at the General Convention of 2000, agreed to certain conditions under which some services of the 1928 BCP could be used. But there was no substitute permitted for the Baptismal Service in the 1979 Prayer Book. It is an essential part of the progressive religion of the modernized Episcopal Church.

The first sentence of the introductory comments in the 1979 Prayer Book begins: “Holy Baptism is full initiation ….” Initiation was rarely used by the Early Church in reference to Baptism. It is the ritual entrance into “the Christian community”, which is the coming together of “individuals” for a common purpose. The kind of community proscribed by “The Baptismal Covenant” is more like a contract between a senior and junior partner, than a Covenant where God alone establishes it and calls repentant sinners into it. It contains a promise to be committed to certain traditional things such as church attendance, resisting of evil, and proclaiming the Gospel. There is also a commitment to an innovation proscribed by questions which require an affirmative reply. They are: “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” And, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?”

These questions require total dedication to the expanding agenda of civil and human rights and the support of all moves to affirm self-worth and human dignity. It requires a serious dumbing-down of orthodox doctrine and biblical morality and adopts an “enlightened” modern approach, where doctrine is based on contemporary experience of life. This requires a commitment to all the innovations introduced since the 1960s, from the right to divorce and remarriage in church, through a variety of women’s and minority rights, to the rights of homosexual persons to be true to their “orientation.” This commitment to “a Christian community” is using “God language” for human ideas and agenda.

In the traditional services of Holy Baptism, the emphasis is upon regeneration, birth from above, dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ, for the purpose of membership in a heavenly communion, where life on earth is a pilgrimage toward the heavenly Jerusalem, and where, as a soldier and servant of Christ, the baptized believer is at war with the world, the flesh, and the devil, doing the will of the heavenly Father. It is entry into a permanent relation with the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost for eternal life.

There is sufficient traditional material in the 1979 Baptismal service to hide its real and true purpose of initiating people into an activist community – which, “in the name of God”, is primarily committed to reflecting social, cultural, and economic change in human society, so that in this world equality, justice, and peace are to be found, and war and discrimination against persons pass away.

For more details, read “Worship without Dumbing-down” by The Rev. Dr. Peter Toon, M.A., D.Phil.

(Preservation Press of the Prayer Book Society of the USA 2005)